Pentagon Takes Aim at Jets for Congressional Travel

Appropriations for Weapons and Other Items Drain Resources Needed to Fight Wars, Says a Spokesman for Defense Secretary

By

Brody Mullins and

August Cole

Updated Aug. 8, 2009 11:59 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- The House's bid to buy new executive jets on the Pentagon's budget has broadened a conflict between Congress and the administration over defense priorities.

"It forces us to take money from things we do need to fund and redirect it for things we don't need," Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said Friday. "And in a time of war, we just can't afford that."

Lawmakers' move to upgrade the fleet of government jets -- used for travel by lawmakers and other senior government officials -- is just one of more than 1,000 spending projects lawmakers added to the Pentagon's budget for next year that weren't requested by President Barack Obama.

The request for additional executive jets, which pales next to the multibillion-dollar weapons systems targeted for cuts by Mr. Gates, comes at a time when the Obama administration is trying to shake up Pentagon budgeting and contracting.

"The bottom line is, for everything that they appropriate for us above and beyond what we've asked for, it will, at some point require us to find money from programs we do need," Mr. Morrell said.

Some lawmakers say they often know more about what the military needs than the executive branch does.

"The Pentagon is not the fountain of all knowledge," said Rep. Bill Young, a Florida Republican who was senior appropriator on the House floor last month when the Pentagon spending bill was approved. "They don't have all of the knowledge, and they don't have all of the wisdom. Neither does the administration, neither does the Congress. That's why we work together."

Congress says the extra jets are needed to replace an aging fleet of planes that are more expensive to operate and maintain. Congressional representatives say the planes are used 44% of the time by members of the military and 14.5% of the time by lawmakers. Administration and Pentagon officials say all the extra aircraft aren't needed.

The dispute over the jets is one element of a struggle between powerful members of Congress and the Obama administration over how to trim the federal budget in the face of ballooning deficits.

Overall, the House trimmed Mr. Obama's budget request for the Pentagon to $636.3 billion, down slightly from the $640.1 billion he sought. But in so doing, House appropriators also rearranged spending priorities, cutting programs Mr. Obama favored and replacing them with items he wanted cut.

In all, the House included more than 1,000 additional spending provisions totaling more than $2.8 billion, according to an analysis of the legislation by the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Lawmakers set aside $485 million toward reviving a terminated
Lockheed Martin
Corp.
contract to build new presidential helicopters, and added $674 million for three new C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes from
Boeing
Co.
They also allocated $560 million to produce an additional engine design for the Lockheed-led F-35 Lightning II fighter jet after the Defense Department and White House said that one engine, made by
United Technologies
Corp.'s
Pratt & Whitney unit, was sufficient.
General Electric
Co.
and Rolls Royce PLC are producing the second engine.

The House's plan to spend $550 million to buy eight business-class passenger jets to ferry senior government and military officials around the globe represents more than double Mr. Obama's request for $220 million to buy a total of four passenger jets, including two that are currently being leased by the Air Force.

The House Appropriations Committee, which approved the order for additional passenger planes, has said the new planes were needed to replace aging ones.

Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, the panel that approved the spending, declined Friday to discuss the planes.

The fight will continue when Congress returns from its recess. The administration persuaded lawmakers to kill plans to build more F-22 fighter jets. But a veto threat hangs over any added funding for the F-35's second engine, as well as for further money for new White House helicopters.

"We are very realistic, we know that you are only going to get a certain percentage of what you want," White House Office of Management and Budget spokesman Kenneth Baer said Friday. "Changing Washington isn't easy. You are not going to get 100% of the cuts that you propose."

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